-
Consider This
Here’s a scary thought. You’re listening to the speaker you hired and you realize she’s gotten your company mixed up with another one of her clients. Or you’re an association meeting planner and as you’re walking down a corridor of the convention hall, you hear attendees saying the presentation from one of the speakers you hired was too generic and a waste of their time.
The speaker may refer to the audience as “all you managers” when it’s an all-staff session. He provides examples that don’t apply because he doesn’t adequately understand your audience and what they do. As a result, there’s little authenticity and connection with the audience and they know it. This happens when a motivational speaker doesn’t do serious prep and just shows up to do his generic presentation. Have you ever had that experience?
How would you like a speaker who understands your audience so well, they may assume the speaker works in your industry or even for your company?
-
The High Definition People® Difference
Whether you’re an event planner for a convention or a corporation, Barbara’s objective with every engagement is to prepare so well that she can seamlessly integrate the company’s or group’s vision and values into her message and make it meaningful to all attendees. She wants to know, “Who are these people and what are they feeling? What are their concerns and challenges?” The outcome: quality of Barbara’s prep becomes readily apparent in her presentations. Some past attendees have commented they thought Barb actually worked in their industry and even their company! Depending on the topic chosen and the client’s objectives, here’s what Barbara will do:
Barbara Reviews Key Documents
Barbara will prepare for your event as if achieving your meeting objective depends on it–because it does. The extent of prep for most speakers is a pre-program questionnaire filled out by the meeting planner. Barbara goes well beyond this bare minimum. For starters, she internalizes information from a number of significant documents from the meeting planner that provide her insight into the heart and soul of your company or association.
Barbara Interviews Stakeholders
Next, she takes her preparation to a higher level than most speakers by interviewing not only the meeting planner but also senior executives and a representative sample of people who will be attending the event. If she learns something during the interviews she feels will add impact to the meeting, she might ask the person if they will make a statement the day of the event (of course with permission from the planner).
The Value
How does this preparation translate into results? By integrating her knowledge of the group into her message, Barbara is able to bond with the audience in a way that makes them feel like she is speaking directly to them individually. That means they internalize the message and take action using the tools for change that she provides (read how Barbara provides powerful tools to change lives and inspires people to take action).
The Proof
Outstanding Barb! Your motivational keynote, Lead in High Definition — Build a High Performance Team! at our Annual Franchisee conference was fantastic. You did the most homework of any speaker I’ve ever met in the 20 years I’ve planned events, including reviewing our key processes, speaking with our franchisees and our CEO and customizing the program to our objectives. It was wonderful to see our group highly engaged, interacting, excited, laughing, writing and having fun! Plus the information you shared was completely relevant to them and will help them build their team, increase sales and grow their business. You delivered a unique, experiential keynote with a roadmap to follow, a call to action and the inspiration to succeed–a great return on our investment. We look forward to having you back to speak at our Branch Leadership Conference and regional events.
Super job! I’ve never seen anyone prepare and present sales and client relationship concepts in such a powerful, creative and engaging way. You clearly practice what you preach. We have a very specialized product yet you knew about us, our business and delivered exactly what our sales reps needed. For such a short session we got valuable tools to make more effective calls and position our reps as consultants. Even our more experienced reps were impressed and very favorable in their comments. You exceeded our expectations and delivered value, practical ideas and tons of motivation!
As professional destination management consultants, we have seen hundreds of speakers including many celebrities and well-known authors. I can personally say in my 20 years of incentive and corporate meeting planning it is rare to find a keynote speaker who will invest the preparation time you did to tailor a program to our needs.
Your presentation was excellent, and the response from the sales representatives has been extremely positive. When looking for a speaker for our meeting, I felt it important to not have someone who “entertained” only. You certainly did your “homework” well. I was initially nervous how a female speaker would be received by my sales organization, which is highly technical, highly educated, and predominantly male. Your engaging style and content had their rapt attention.
Barbara, on behalf of the Fairmont Southampton Leadership Team, I would like to thank you for delivering on your promise – an engaging presentation that left lasting results. You tailored your presentation to use the language embedded in our service culture so well, it was like watching a Fairmont Leader present. You moved from visitor to family very quickly. I know many of our Leaders made a connection with the specific tools and strategies you offered and even one team who are making Service Dream Boards. We appreciated your passion for motivating people and inspiring us to seek Cappuccino Moments™. Thank you Barb. We consider you a service industry partner and look forward to when our paths may cross again.
Your presentation was outstanding. You gave us the meat and the gravy! I want to tell you personally how impressed I was with your groundwork and your efforts to make the presentation about our industry and for our industry. You set the tone for a fabulous IRIS conference, one our members will remember as a mandate to go forward and redesign one room, one home, one suburb at a time. Barb–you shine!
It was very apparent from the onset of your presentation that you spoke with several attendees in advance of the meeting. I watched as our management’s eyes opened with amazement at the knowledge and preparation you made in understanding our products and challenges.
I continued to receive many positive comments from our associates regarding your insights. They have told me that they have incorporated your ideas into their daily activities. Your understanding of Bank of America’s Small Business Banking Group made a difference with the audience as evidenced by the following comments:
“It was obvious Barbara understood our business and what challenges we face. She did her homework.”
“Excellent speaker! The best I’ve had the opportunity to hear, ever.”
We were looking for a tailored program with take-home value and motivation and you delivered. Our Management Development Manager exclaimed you hit the bull’s eye in what we were looking for.
Given the wide range of experience in our group, you successfully engaged ALL of our sales staff. Even our veterans benefited from your focused presentation and coaching session. The positive feedback we received from our people was practically unanimous and all felt that the concepts, focused on relationship building with clients to grow sales, were practical and worthwhile. There is no doubt that your ability to connect with our folks was a direct result of the great amount of time you spent in preparation and the diligence with which you tailored many portions of the day. Going forward, we will surely continue to incorporate many of the techniques and tips and use it to grow our company’s revenues and the incomes of our staff.
Thank you so much for your wonderful and inspiring keynote, Grow Your Business, Experience Life’s Best–How to Thrive in any Environment!, at our National Sales Meeting. As the leader of the sales effort my hope with a speaker is: that their message support what I’m trying to reinforce with my sales team, that it speak to our business and industry significantly enough so our people can truly apply the principles to their strategy and most of all, that they are engaging and we leave motivated with significant take-aways. Barbara, you delivered and then some! Your material was timely, your understanding of our business was outstanding and very skillfully applied, you had wonderful energy and I filled a notepad with ideas. As a matter of fact, I remember wishing I could leave the meeting to apply the ideas while they were fresh in my mind! Thank you Barbara for a memorable key note – I hope the standing ovation you received showed you how much we loved it!
